On 18 January, chief of Nissan Motors’ ADAS department Shigetoshi Tokuoka gave a lecture at Automotive World 2017 where he praised the lane-maintaining, self-driving technology known as ProPILOT included with the company’s minivan the Selena, stating that “driving has become much easier.”

Mr. Tokuoka noted that “looking at Selena sales, over 60% now account for models with ProPILOT, and over 70% of those drivers have said that ‘driving has become much easier.’ Including answers that lean towards positive reception of the new feature brings that almost to 100% of those Selena owners recognizing the benefits of ProPILOT.”

ProPILOT is currently only available on Japanese Selenas, but Mr. Tokuoka says “we’re planning to bring this feature to other markets and models,” but indicated that “among different regions, driving conditions and what drivers look for is different. Also, tastes differ in terms of maximum speeds, acceleration rates, and steering.”

In addition to that, “there are people in Europe who’ve stated they don’t want to get tangled up in these kind of systems, while in the US there are drivers who would rather have the system do most of the work. Therefore, in order to bring the ProPILOT technology to other markets, I feel that we’ll need to tailor the system to each individual market.”